When money is no object, time sometimes is, and a
professional lawn service will take care of many of the time
consuming chores of landscape maintenance. With professional help
taking care of fertilizing and weeding the lawn, protecting it
from insect damage, and sometimes even mowing the grass, home
gardeners are free to turn their attention to other tasks that are
more interesting to them. Hiring a professional is no reason to
neglect learning about lawn care, though, for without some
knowledge about lawns it will be difficult to select a company
that can provide you with good, safe service and meet your desires
to protect groundwater resources.

Your first decision when selecting a lawn care company
is whether you want lawn care or lawn maintenance. For general
maintenance such as mowing and trimming, a neighborhood teenager
may be the cheapest solution, and with a little initial
supervision will probably do the job as well as you would
yourself. For fertilizer and pesticide application, it pays to
hire trained professionals who know when and how to apply these
chemicals in a manner safe to you, your neighbors, your plants,
and the environment.

There are national and local lawn care services; the
size of the company is not important, but the training,
reliability, and experience is. When choosing a service ask for
references and then review them. Check with the Better Business
Bureau to see if there are any outstanding consumer complaints
against any companies with whom you are considering doing
business.

When you are satisfied that the company you are
considering is reputable, have the representative come to your
house to thoroughly discuss the services you require, the services
the company can provide, and the prices involved. Walk together
around your yard, noting any special problem areas and discussing
how the company can treat them. Find out what the basic care
package includes and the cost of additional services. Check into
the fertilizer and pesticide schedule, and find out what chemicals
are applied. The representative should be knowledgeable and answer
your questions in a straightforward, concerned manner.

Make sure that the company follows good lawn care
procedures. Discuss timing of weed control. The representative and
the workers who perform the lawn care should show a healthy
respect for and knowledge of the chemicals used. Proper
application is necessary for proper results and for the safety of
surrounding plants, neighboring property, and the environment. One
national lawn service company is addressing homeowner concerns
over excessive use of pesticides and pesticide drift with
alternative lawn care programs. They offer a fertilizer only
option, a limited pesticide option which involves spraying
pesticides only when a problem is evident, and a dry option which
uses granular fertilizers and pesticides which will minimize drift
onto neighboring property. Find out if you can obtain similar
options from the company you select. Lawn care services use low
pressure sprayers which reduce the likelihood of drift, but extra
care is never wrong when dealing with pesticides. And, of course,
there is no need to apply pesticide to a nonexistent problem; the
practice may only lead to contamination of groundwater.